


The Last Wine of Summer

by paperiuni



Category: Chì bì | Red Cliff (2008), Sān guó yǎn yì | Romance of the Three Kingdoms - All Media Types
Genre: Courtship, Drama, Friendship, Friendship/Love, Historical References, Multi, Poetry, Romance, Threesome - F/M/M, movie canon only
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-09-23
Updated: 2014-11-04
Packaged: 2018-02-18 13:38:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2350349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paperiuni/pseuds/paperiuni
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The year has turned twice since the battle of Red Cliff. The arrival of an unexpected guest brings forth both memory and change: friendships wrought in war find their bounds redefined across a summer of peace.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Umbralpilot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Umbralpilot/gifts).



> This one is for my darling Umbralpilot, somewhat on her birthday, for pulling me into her tiny fandoms, and for being a fantastic friend and a lady of class and sensibility in general.
> 
> For purposes of this story, I've largely ignored the wider (semi)historical context of _Three Kingdoms_. Sometimes you just want to pretend that things turned out okay and there was time for tea and poetry and qin-playing instead of new wars breaking out. I humbly beg the pardon of any history scholars/enthusiasts in the audience.
> 
> A thousand thanks to Nadat for the beta. ♥

The letter arrives at the flowering of the peach trees, in the hand of a muddy courier who has asked the way to Sleeping Dragon Ridge three times before finding the path. Xiao Qiao's smooth calligraphy flows across the narrow wood slats, with a hint of caprice in the tails of her strokes.

 _Esteemed Mr. Zhuge_ , it begins. Requesting his servant to show the courier to some food and rest, Zhuge Liang takes it to his writing table. Three months have come and gone since the northern sky blossomed with fire from the ships, and the wind bore the thunder of the shattering ships and the screams of the dying beyond his hearing.

She writes of spring in her script that carries an inkling of whimsy, of the flooding river and the planting toils in the village. Ordinary, peaceful things that are repeated in the lives of all who are tied to the soil and the weather, to the cycles of the earth and the heavens. She mentions the auburn foal her husband named for the hope of a peace that would follow the battle.

Leaving the letter, re-tied with its cord, he goes to tend to his silkworms.

When the courier leaves the next morning, he sends along a carrier pigeon from his aviary, a hearty, curious bird, and a reply on a strip of mulberry paper.

* * *

" 'Gracious Lady Qiao'," she cites, holding open the reply in the glow of the brazier. Even though spring creeps along, the river damp is bad this year. Caution keeps her indoors while the rainy weather lingers. "The rest of it is in verse. That's hardly a surprise."

Zhou Yu gives her a look, though he's ostensibly engrossed in the rest of the correspondence that spilled forth from the messenger's bag. An indulgent curiosity, not an expression even she often sees him wear, hides in the staid lines of his face. "Does he also speak of agriculture?"

"Does my beloved husband now hold an interest in my garden?" She sets the letter next to a sprawling one from Shangxiang, begging to come stay with them as soon as possible. Her writing implements rest in a box under the table, and she leans over gingerly to withdraw them. "He does imply your courier lost his way on the country paths."

"Ah. I must improve my maps, or hire messengers with greater wits." With a dip of his hand, her box is on table. "And all things of yours hold an interest to me. Not least so the news of our friend in Nanyang."

"I'll write him so." She lays out the brush and the inkstone, and he passes her a bowl of water for wetting the ink. "After I've persuaded Shangxiang to wait until the roads are more than mud."

Zhou Yu hums and returns his own letters, of more urgent import. It may be that the sister of the Duke of Wu is not the most likely company for his wife in the last months of her pregnancy, but Xiao Qiao holds her own counsel on that account. Outside, the rain runs from the eaves in silver rivulets of sound. Perhaps that will make for a verse in an answering poem.

Grasping her sleeve to keep it out of the way, she sets brush to paper in the warmth of the brazier.

* * *

Xiao Qiao releases the carrier pigeon with a rolled-up letter in a wax-sealed tube tied to its leg, and speaks a quiet good wish for its arch over the hills. It need not stop to request directions. She smiles as she closes the balcony door, recalling the lyrical reference to the messenger's troubles in Zhuge Liang's reply. Perhaps the bird is another facet of the wordplay, a layer of intimation.

Then she bundles up the rest of her correspondence--being housebound but not infirm in any true sense has left her with time--to be sent out, to Shangxiang, to her older sister in Sun Quan's court, with the next courier. Next winter she will visit her mother in Lujiang as is proper. Now she must put her devotion and longing to paper, as well as the stirring joys, if not so many of the pains, of her own coming motherhood.

Almost as much as she misses her yearly journey, she misses the outdoors. Soon would be the time for cutting willow and cedar bark, and she would take the faithful Luoyue and ramble among the hills where the wild plants bloom in their glens and dells. Yet life is as it is. Against that, it pleases her to try her hand at poetry. It even pleases her to answer Zhuge Liang in it, sliding roundabout apologies for her fledgling skill into her lines.

From downstairs she can almost hear the thrumming strings of a _guqin_ , weaving notes into defiance, into urgency, into hope. For a moment, she cannot tell if the sound is real or if it brims forth from her memory alone.

She descends the stairs to find Zhou Yu sitting in a shaft of sunlight, the veranda shutters thrown back. Instead of his characteristic, forceful style, he plucks at his _qin_ in wistful snatches of melody. She wonders if he, too, was straining his ear for the echoes of a piece long since finished rather than his own music.

* * *

She writes to him again. Sometimes in prose, sometimes in verse, her letters dot the steady trickle of missives that binds his thatched cottage to the wider world. Zhuge Liang waits, as he always waits, for the summons that will take him from his pigeons and his orchard, the fields waving with summer wheat and the terraced hills where the rice ripens in the paddies. It keeps not arriving. That in itself should be a good thing.

Among the reports, queries and schemes, as well as correspondence from a fellow scholar or three, Xiao Qiao requests his opinion on the finer points of drying magnolia and wild chrysanthemum. Sometimes she shares a snippet of a classic text she's been perusing. They are always picked for lightness, half as curiosities: a woman, demurely musing on a venerable side note, never offering anything so concrete as a conclusion.

Once in early autumn, the letter is in a different hand, exact and strong. Zhou Yu regrets that his wife is indisposed to reply, but their daughter has been born healthy and lived through her first month. His turns of phrase, as restrained as they are, belie a profound contentment. No matter what the classics prescribe, this child is never likely to see the underside of her crib.

The birth of a child is ordinary news. In war such tidings carry a great weight, as a reminder that the paces of life do not stop, that there may be a home at the end of the fighting. In peace, tenuous or enduring, some of that weight is lifted. It becomes more pressing to tend the fields, to fix a leaking roof or a broken cart wheel--or to administer a commandery--than to remember friends far away.

Zhuge Liang allows himself to linger, the letter open in his hands, before he rises and puts it away with the rest.

* * *

_My honourable friend_ , her brush picks out on the ribbon of paper, _I hope to find you in good health. As well as my family fares, I must admit to a most unfortunate failing in horticulture..._

There came a point in their correspondence where Xiao Qiao began to ease down her courtesies. Zhuge Liang blew into Red Cliff like his fortuitous gale of wind and rattled more than a few conventions in so doing, even though she only saw his effortless composure slip once. His facade of humility masks a man of verbal wit and grace, and she cannot quite resist returning that wit when she may.

"I come up for tea and find my wife laughing to herself." She turns as a familiar shadow falls across her table. "There must be quite the diversion behind this."

It seems she has been remiss in realising Zhou Yu has returned from his ride. The smells of crushed leaves and pine sap cling to him. Xiao Qiao bows her head, yet her mouth curves in a smile. There's a note of teasing in his words.

"No, not really." She pulls the brazier from its corner and begins her preparations. "Only a gardening misstep. How was the road?"

"Passable enough that I didn't stay on it long. You must join me again soon."

Warriors seldom stand idle even in times of calm, and generals never do, but it warms her heart that he has an afternoon to lose on the twisting woodland paths. Her hands go through the familiar motions of setting out cups and bowls.

"I imagine I must. You smell like the forest." She selects a tea brick and begins grinding it in the mortar.

Zhou Yu glances at the tools of her writing, left askew on the table. "I know you miss it."

Some contemplation stills him, his brow creased. Until the fragrance of the tea powder fills the air and it scatters fine enough from her testing fingertips, she lets the silence lie.

He accepts the cup she offers him. She draws her fingers away through his sword-calloused ones. "And you miss him."

Zhou Yu's pensive visage darkens into a frown. "An end to this calm is the last thing I wish for, Xiao Qiao."

She pauses. "That isn't what I said, is it?"

A shadow lies across his eyes as he sips her tea, using the gesture to gather himself. "No, but peace makes demands of us just the same as war does."

"Are those demands harsh enough that there's no time to write?" If she chides a little, it may be warranted. Her stolid husband, so centered in himself as to forget that friendship is born of more than a common cause in battle, and can endure in gentler ways.

"No," he says at length. "It is not that simple." Then his hand finds hers and clasps it firmly. "I know you know that, as well."

"Perhaps." Xiao Qiao sighs, studying their interlocked fingers. "Perhaps I've chosen to see it as simple. So few things in the world are, dear husband. Is some joy not worth it, while there's a chance for it?"

"Perhaps," he echoes her. They drink the tea then, and speak no more of Zhuge Liang that day.

* * *

The sounds of Shangxiang practising her archery are clear: the thwacks of arrows striking the target, with a snatch of laughter or an epithet to mark a fine hit or an entire miss. She has claimed a patch of the courtyard, where piles of materiel were stored when the keep was last manned to capacity.

Xiao Qiao tilts the brim of her hat up for a glimpse of her princess, tense in the archer's pose, her bow drawn. The arrow leaves in a clean line, singing from the string to burrow into the centre of the packed hay bale.

"Tea?" Xiao Qiao says. "You've been here all morning."

"Oh!" Shangxiang turns. "What I would like is a swim, but yes, thank you." She reclaims her arrow, the half-empty quiver swinging against her leg. Her hair is gathered in a cloth, lifted from her neck in the warmth of the day.

"A swim? In the river?"

"Where else? Don't tell me you never swam in the river."

The Yangtze is the heart of the Southland, and the child that never dipped into its green waters is a rare thing. "Perhaps. That was long ago."

Propping her foot on the end of the stave, Shangxiang presses down the other end to unstring the bow. "Then we should at least ride out and find a forest pond."

"If you wish." Xiao Qiao is used to the fact that her friend cares little for such things as the propriety of a woman married for ten years cooling herself in the river. "Only after I finish with the garden. Otherwise it'll be too late for planting."

"Of course, of course."

They round the lotus pond in the shade of the hanging willows. Just then a shout goes up in the watchtower above the gate. "Rider!"

"A messenger?" Shangxiang sharpens.

"I don't know." Xiao Qiao swallows. "The courier isn't due yet, even if he made good time. If it's a guest, I should find my husband."

The Southland is at peace, she reminds herself. Zhou Yu keeps a gimlet eye across the river, and if word were coming of unrest, it would fly from the north. She smooths down her sleeves as if she could scatter the ghosts of the war along with the summer dust.

"Let's find out." Shangxiang dashes down the path. The guard on duty will alert Zhou Yu if the rider comes on military business, but if it is a visitor rather than a soldier, he will busy Xiao Qiao before her husband.

The heavy gate of time-weathered wood creaks as the two women emerge from the trees. A man in travel-stained, light-coloured robes is dismounting from his horse.

"Kongming!"

With that, Shangxiang rushes to take the reins of his horse, to pat the mare's soaked head and beam at her rider. For Xiao Qiao, surprise and delight come hand in hand, but a step later than to her carefree princess.

"Chief Strategist." The title sounds incongruous to her after the familiarity of their correspondence--unless she intends it as a discreet joke. She dips into a bow. "You honour this house."

Zhuge Liang smiles his slight, many-shaded smile. "Lady Qiao." He looks up from his answering bow, as smooth as it is measured. "Are we not at peace, that there is call for such titles?"

_Have you come to tell us that? Or may I welcome you as a guest?_

"Which title are you wearing today?" she says. "Surely you wouldn't leave your host wondering that, along with the mystery of your arrival."

"I gathered that the lady was having trouble with her lotus pond."

Shangxiang laughs, merry and incredulous, but the next voice to speak is accompanied by the beat of footfalls from the house. "I seem to recall you killed your lotus flowers last time."

Zhuge Liang bows again, if more briskly. "Viceroy Zhou."

Xiao Qiao is not certain from where her husband has been wrested by this sudden arrival, but his face is alive with subtle amusement. "Advisor." Zhou Yu falls back upon Zhuge Liang's less martial title.

"One takes such a setback as an opportunity for further study," says Zhuge Liang. "If the lady will permit me."

Shangxiang passes the reins of Zhuge Liang's horse to an approaching stablehand. "I'm sure she will. Can I say that it's good to see you? Or are we going to stand here and hedge until the sun cooks us all ripe?"

"I return your sentiment, Princess." Zhuge Liang turns towards her. Xiao Qiao is afforded a moment to think. One guest will not weigh much in the routines of her household. That he arrived without any prior word will not matter--but the fact of his arrival does matter, to Zhou Yu and to her, even if his reason truly is as benevolent as he claims.

Yet the smile she summons is genuine. "I will certainly permit you, and you have our hospitality for as long as you wish to stay."

As she casts a sideways look at Zhou Yu, he inclines his head in slow, thoughtful agreement.

* * *

The heat abates little as the day draws on. A stiff wind blows from the hills and ruffles the worst of the still, sweltering air. True to his word, Zhuge Liang requests a look at Xiao Qiao's unfortunate lotus pond. After the midday meal, she leads him into the garden. Zhou Yu brings his correspondence onto the veranda, sheltered from the gusty breeze, and finds himself distracted from the reports.

Across the garden, his wife and his guest speak in polite voices. Their conversation grows more animated as it goes along. Xiao Qiao has pulled a long, fibrous root the day before. The two of them sit considering the pallid blossoms that seem reluctant to spread into the luminous flowers they ought to be.

To welcome Zhuge Liang into his house is to let creep in the phantoms of bitter winter, flying banners of choking smoke and flame. Yet summer is in bloom. Zhou Yu has sent his soldiers home to till their fields and live with their families as they should, under Heaven.

His shoes dropped on the bank, Zhuge Liang wades into the pool. Brisk as the farmer he purports to be, he trails the stem of a flower into the water with his hands, searching for the root.

While Xiao Qiao has always had an affinity for gardening, something changed about her efforts two winters ago. Once she would plant flowers for their sweet smell and striking colour; now she delves into ancient herbaria for plants that may relieve the sick and soothe the wounded.

There is the wide splash of something striking the water, and Xiao Qiao exclaims in surprise. Zhou Yu dashes onto his feet to see ripples spreading across the lotus pond. A straw hat--the one Xiao Qiao gave to their guest to ward off the sun--floats serenely at their centre. Collecting her skirts, she climbs down into the water to extend her hand to a soaked, coughing Zhuge Liang as he breaks to the surface.

"Here, here," she says. "Take my hand. I'm so sorry. There's a root..."

The nearby willows have dug their roots into the damp earth under the pond. Zhou Yu crosses the distance to them, swallowing a time or two. It would not do to chuckle at his guest. Zhuge Liang accepts the offered hand, fishes up his hat and coughs again. "I see. Lady Qiao--lady Qiao prefers a less rigorous arrangement than most."

"The trees are best fit where they are," Zhou Yu cuts in. "You're unharmed?"

"Quite." Zhuge Liang wrings out his sleeve. His cloth-wrapped hair has unravelled halfway. "As gentlemen, we shall not mention the blow to my dignity."

Zhou Yu finds himself smiling against his better intentions, the corner of his mouth crooking. "As you say."

"Well, you must get dry in any case." Pulling the cloth from her hat, Xiao Qiao hands it to Zhuge Liang and turns to call for one of her women.

"And then," Zhuge Liang says, wiping his face, "we may continue, if you'll be so good as to warn me of any other hazards in your garden."

A giggle slips from Xiao Qiao, smothered into the back of her hand. Zhuge Liang echoes her laugh, a soft, subtle sound, but not an affected one, as if for a moment he'd forgotten the sting to his pride. Zhou Yu doesn't think he's ever heard it before.

"I'd ill repay your kindness if I didn't," she says. "Come now."

Zhou Yu nods to them both and turns back to the veranda and his waiting duties. The last small ripples lick the banks of the pond until the water is mirror-smooth once more.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, many thanks to Nadat for betareading and encouragement. You're golden, darling.

A week later the house continues to harbour a guest, and Zhou Yu feels his watchfulness ease even while questions remain. It is one thing for the princess and a brace of her armed maids to come or go: Zhuo Yu is equally fond of both of his oath-brother's living siblings. Shangxiang seeks Red Cliff--and Xiao Qiao--as a refuge away from the court. He ought to be sterner with her than he is, but these may be her last days of youthful liberty. What the battle spared he would not stifle.

The princess is an open page; Zhuge Liang, by contrast, a riddle. Liu Bei has gone west with his armies and his generals, yet his strategist is free to visit his erstwhile allies. In name, the alliance persists, but the accord has not been tested in some time.

Thus Zhou Yu is left to receive Zhuge Liang as a friend. He is invited to share their meals and their free hours, and is quick to assure Zhou Yu that Zhou Yu's books or walking the shores of the river will hold his interest when the viceroy is occupied. Xiao Qiao steps gracefully into many of these absences, ready with some vexing passage of _The Inner Canon_ for examination or with another, lighter topic of conversation.

Near the evening of the tenth day, a storm simmers down the Yangtze. The household huddles indoors from the whipping rain, and the long branches of the willows toss and dance against the roof. Xiao Qiao heats wine over a brazier to keep them warm. The rain carries a snapping chill in its skirts, despite the heat just before.

A soft, quivering note breaks a lull in the conversation. Zhou Yu had not even realised no one has spoken for a moment: the rain seems to hedge in the world, as if there were no other lands beyond its grey curtain.

Something wry in his gaze, Zhuge Liang looks up from the _guqin_ set on its stool by the wall. "I've interrupted your thoughts."

In more than one way and occasion since his arrival, Zhou Yu has to admit in the privacy of his own mind. Aloud he says, trying to lighten his voice, "If you wish to play, you don't need to sneak at my _qin_. I'll find you another."

"I beg your pardon." Zhuge Liang retreats to his sitting mat, and Xiao Qiao takes the moment to return from the other room. The whisk of her robes sweeps away some web of tension Zhou Yu is only aware of now that it is loosened.

"You play, but I would guess you can recite, as well?" He raises his cup, steadies it in his hand. The question is, of course, rhetorical.

"When the moment is right."

"It might storm for some time. I wouldn't want to run out of books before you can resume your explorations."

"Very well." Zhuge Liang stands again, raises his cup, and begins in a low, clear voice:

"In the South the trees bend low,  
Creepers creeping o'er them.  
Happy with her lord is she;  
Fortune is behind, before them!

In the South the trees bend low;  
Creepers wild caress them.  
Happy with her lord is she;  
Fortune followeth to bless them!"

And he nods to Xiao Qiao as she takes her seat beside Zhou Yu.

She smiles, her head raised. "Thank you. Are you simply complimenting or am I to understand you wish me to continue?"

"If it pleases you." His cup lowered, his hands fold into his sleeves.

Xiao Qiao touches the edge of Zhou Yu's sleeve, then straightens her back to speak from a sitting position. The old verse flows as brightly and easily from her lips as their guest's poem a moment ago.

"Deftly he sets his rabbit-nets;  
Hear what blows, as he drives each stake!  
Stalwart and strong,—'tis a warrior's form:  
Wall and shield for his Prince he'd make.

Deftly he sets his rabbit-nets;  
Right in the heart of the wildwood spread.  
Stalwart and strong,—'tis a warrior's form:  
Such were a Prince's heart and head!"

She, in turn, sits back and cants her head at Zhou Yu.

"It seems it is to be the Odes tonight," he says.

"I began it, but your lady wife set the pattern." Zhuge Liang sounds sincerely appreciative, but then his tone changes, slants and sharpens into a subtle edge. "Surely you can find one fit for a rainy evening."

A challenge in the form of poetry is innocuous enough, a scholar jesting with a soldier. In Zhou Yu's ears it echoes of other words, gone into memory and winter wind, when they planned together at this very fort to win the war for their liege lords. That tremulous note on the _guqin_ seems to vibrate barely out of his hearing.

Rising, he lifts the instrument from its rest and begins searching for a tune. While reciting is pleasant enough, song has always suited him better. His fingers feeling out the melody, he looks at neither Xiao Qiao nor Zhuge Liang.

"Long, long the stormwind blew, and wild.—  
He turned to look at me: he smiled;  
But mockery was there, and scorn.  
Ah, how my very heart was torn!

Long, long it blew, with dust for rain.—  
'Be kind, and come to me again.'  
He came not, neither went his way;  
And long in pensive thought I lay."

As his voice peters out, he lets a fading tumble of notes fall from the _qin_ before it stills again. His wife sits with her eyes half-closed, as she used to in their earlier years, when he played more often, quiet and content. Zhuge Liang sips the wine, but his air is one of inquisitiveness.

"One might say you changed the rules, Viceroy. Masterfully, of course."

Zhou Yu, the silk strings of the _qin_ as taut under his fingertips as his mind is drawn at the words, can't find a reply straight away.

"I trust you will not begrudge him, Kongming?" Xiao Qiao leans in to fill Zhuge Liang's cup.

"Not in the slightest." Zhuge Liang speaks to her, but his glance past her meets Zhou Yu's eye.

 _And you miss him_ , Xiao Qiao said, more far-sighted than Zhou Yu himself. It is she who converses with Zhuge Liang as with a dear friend, while Zhou Yu feels himself shaken like a storm-swept tree by his presence. He lays the _qin_ aside and takes his seat again, grateful for Xiao Qiao inclining towards him, her cheek at his shoulder, when Zhuge Liang gets to his feet and continues, choosing an ancient work song, one with a rhythm as steady as the rain pattering on the roof.

* * *

Sooner or later, she will ask him. Lady Qiao--Xiao Qiao--was raised to navigate every curve and twist of decorum and genteel manners. Even so, there will come a point at which a guest must yield up the purpose of his stay.

For now, Zhuge Liang has evaded that inquiry. The wet weather persists, and one afternoon he joins Xiao Qiao in the storehouse where she dries her plants, as she studies the neat sheafs hung up on their racks and makes sure the damp has not ruined them.

"You're not missed in Nanyang yet?" She tosses a bundle of roots into the basket where she gathers the spoiled plants. "The peaches will be ripe soon."

"I've left my fields in the best of hands." Since he followed Lord Liu out from the seclusion of the terraced hills and bright waters of his home, he has been aware that he may not see any given planting or blooming, frost of autumn or dawning of spring at Sleeping Dragon Ridge. Humming wryly, he continues, "I may need to make amends to my sister-in-law if she must feed my silkworms as well as her own."

"If we end up keeping you that long, I'll see that you have a gift to take to her," Xiao Qiao says. "What do you think of this?"

The whiff of sweetness from the dried jasmine is still strong. "It will serve well in tea."

She drops the handful of petals back in their lidded basket. "That would suit the season. Your brother tends your farm?"

"I am blessed with a long-suffering sibling." He offers to take the basket as they prepare to leave, and she lays it in his hands. "One might say even beyond my virtues."

"You have the good fortune to have your brother near you. I have my sister, of course, but our mother is a hard journey away."

A stringent moralist would tell her that her loyalty is now to the family of her husband--to which another would at once say that filial piety supersedes even the bonds of marriage. Zhuge Liang listens and hears the longing of a loving daughter, far away in the house of a cherished spouse. What do the pangs of the heart matter compared to propriety?

"Such is the way of the world." He tries for philosophy rather than harshness.

"Always," she says. "I suppose that makes its gifts all the more precious."

Thus she has coaxed out the hope hidden in his sentiment. She is fabled, even in life, to be the most beautiful woman in the Middle Kingdom. Were he asked to describe Xiao Qiao, he would not begin with her poise or her lovely face, but with her mind. Because she is, if never in name or in status, a scholar--gentle as a forest, supple as a bamboo stalk in thought and deed. With nothing but her wits and a cup of tea, she stalled the conquest of Cao Cao.

He contains the thought before it can slide on to a red-stained night sky, flames reflected on the dark-running waters. Red Cliff stands as a watchtower now, a guardpost of the tranquil summer.

"Shall we try the jasmine, then?" he offers, and is gratified by the soft sound of her amusement in reply.

* * *

The cloud banks part in due time, revealing a lush landscape dripping from every branch and stem, every groove in the hills a momentary runnel as the storm waters swirl down into the great river. No news seems to have moved in the downpour. Having sent out fresh patrols, Zhou Yu returns to the house to meet Zhuge Liang in the courtyard, sifting a handful of damp earth through his fingers.

"Viceroy," he says. "I was considering the lotus pond. If the problem is not in the plants, then it must be in the soil."

If there is one man in the Middle Kingdom who will be arduously proper with his hands in the dirt, it must be Zhuge Liang. The title is correct, and yet it clashes in Zhou Yu's ear.

He could make a polite comment and withdraw. Instead, he lets his intruding thought, that awareness of the careful distance that remains between them, shape his answer. "The earth will wait for you. The forest after rain will not. Would you ride with me?"

If Zhuge Liang wonders at his request, it does not show. He slaps the dirt from his hands. "Gladly."

They ride at a light pace up the road that meanders along the river: the Yangtze has swollen with the rain, hurrying downstream high and turbulent. Soon, though, Zhou Yu leads them onto a game path and up towards the hills. So eager as to be restive, the horses trot along with as evident enjoyment as Zhou Yu's own.

Every Southland general must know the vagaries of naval warfare, but horses have always been dearer to him than ships. With her care for the animals, Xiao Qiao has only strengthened that affinity. These two are sure-footed highland horses, at home on these rambling ridges and steep vales.

A while passes with only a few words spoken between them. Zhuge Liang points out a songbird he does not recognise, then a good place for cutting cedar bark come next spring. Zhou Yu supplies the name and promises to mention the cedars to Xiao Qiao. The air is sweet and laden with green, cut through by the blades of tawny sunbeams between the branches. It is effortless and strange to ride so unburdened through the birdsong and the sounds of leaves and waters; Zhou Yu has his sword and bow tied to the saddle, but no guards trail them. At length, they enter a ribbon of meadow between the hills.

With or without intent, they spur their mounts as if it were a race. The sudden, open wind rifles the manes of the horses and their wide sleeves. Zhou Yu foils Zhuge Liang's momentary lead by leaping his mount over a thorny thicket, gripped by a youthful wildness. It may be stolen liberty, and it may only last until they reach the gorged creek at the valley bottom. Still, he laughs as he pulls his horse into a halt, striking silver ripples across the rushing water.

"You ride as a general should, Viceroy." Zhuge Liang lets his horse splash into the stream and drink.

Zhou Yu sighs, his high spirits deflating. "You can call me by my style name. If you're past such formalities with my wife, you can be with me as well."

Shock passes across Zhuge Liang's face before he can drop his gaze. "I... see. It was never my intention to offend. I assure you that..."

And before he can finish, Zhou Yu has to stop him--he will examine the full implications of Zhuge Liang's confusion later, but now he must set this straight. "Kongming. I'm not demanding an explanation."

Whether it is his direct tone or the candid address, Zhuge Liang looks up, and his abashed expression clears as quickly as it appeared.

"I'd prefer," Zhou Yu says, "that we could speak as friends. In this time of peace."

He has known the strategist but scarcely the man, stitched his plans to Zhuge Liang's as if a needle had been set into his hand by Heaven, known the other's thoughts as if they were extensions of his own. They were comrades in arms, bound as war binds men, swiftly and implicitly. It is a deep bond but not always a wide one.

"That suits me if it suits you," says Zhuge Liang. "But you understand why it had to be you who indulged me in the matter."

Zhou Yu pauses. "I do."

Outside his position as Liu Bei's chief military advisor, Zhuge Liang is a farmer from Nanyang. Learned, articulate, brilliant as a sunrise after rain, but common-born. He cannot presume familiarity with a man of Zhou Yu's heritage. Cannot and will not, no matter how much Zhou Yu might wish otherwise.

Dismounting, Zhuge Liang crouches down to sip water from his cupped hands. A startled wading bird erupts from the reeds, aloft in a flurry of beating plumes, and he turns to watch its flight along the creek.

"It is beautiful, the Southland. Especially in this season."

"So you came to see more of it than the lotus pond?" Zhou Yu tries for lightness, for all that Zhuge Liang undermines his effort with his mere presence.

"A life of farming doesn't lend itself to much travel." Zhuge Liang shakes his hands dry, scattering droplets into the stream. "In this we are not alike. To you, perhaps, going from place to place is a given."

"And a duty." His feet find the smooth stones of the bank, and his horse nudges forward to slake its thirst, too.

"Even so." Zhuge Liang clasps his hands behind his back, poised in his contemplation. "I count myself fortunate for the chance to see your country again."

Or for a chance to test the air in the kingdom in other senses than the pure wind of the hills, to see which way the internal scuffles and loyalties progress, and where the seams for unravelling them might lie? As mild as Zhuge Liang's words are, they set Zhou Yu's thoughts seething.

He could only hear them with a level heart if they were sincere.

His horse pulls at the rein, and he lets it loosen from his fingers, drawn into a fist without his knowing. Zhuge Liang's eye wanders over the twisting valley, up along the worn contours of the hills. Zhou Yu watches his face instead. _I would nothing rather than that I might trust you, without reservation, without second thought. As Xiao Qiao seems to._

Perhaps Zhuge Liang has come without lien save for his own wishes. That would free Zhou Yu to face his own. Duty binds his tongue and his hand, but he has yet to meet a man in whom it would constrain the silent longings of mind or body.

It seems he can count himself as no such man, either. Even as he makes overtures of friendship, spurred by the fleeting freedom of their ride, here, lost in the green wood, a different desire tightens his throat.

This is why his _qin_ has sat mute under his fingers except in echo of another's music. This is why he only took up the brush and letter paper once, even then at Xiao Qiao's request, when she was too weary after Ping'an's birth to write. This is why he has kept Zhuge Liang at a distance throughout his visit.

Looking into the depth of his own regard for this man, he might drown. Since his marriage he has had no other lovers, men or women. That doesn't mean he would have forgotten the shape of want, the hum of it in his bones, the abrupt blooming of it at a glance, at a turn.

That it is Zhuge Liang whose light gestures and glowing wit tug at him, is either the bitterest of ironies or the strangest of fortunes, and he does not know which.

The silence persists, weighed down by its own length.

"We must ride out more often," Zhou Yu finally says. He leans on courtesy when words seem to tangle in his throat. "Even if you don't hunt, there's... certainly much to see."

Broken from his musing, Zhuge Liang raises a brow at him. "As the unannounced visitor here, I am at your whim."

If he but were. Zhou Yu stifles the rest of the thought.

"Come," he says thickly. "We should turn back for today."

A frown flickers across Zhuge Liang's face. "As you wish." He coaxes his horse away from its grazing, but the bemused shade in his eyes never quite clears away.

* * *

Zhou Yu rides home at dusk, the warm, weary noises of the horses and the thump of their hooves echoing from the courtyard. Having already withdrawn for the night, Xiao Qiao leaves greeting him to the stablehands.

It is a beautiful evening, the shadow of the hills sliding eastward like a trailing cloak. The day fades into a cooler darkness. She wraps her slumbering daughter in her quilts and closes the shutters of the nursery. Only the lanterns upon the veranda guide her to her own quarters, but the way is familiar, and light lingers in the west.

Equally familiar is the shadow lingering by the veranda door, his eyes on the horizon. He turns at once at her approach.

"Dear husband." Her fingers catch his forearm. "I hadn't expected you."

"Xiao Qiao." He must have bathed, but she can smell the rain-soaked earth on him, the horse and the wind, dusty and free. She moves to open the sliding screen, halted by his hands in her loosely bound hair. Gentle as they are, easily as she shifts towards him at the gesture, a tension belies that touch.

The question almost rises to her lips. In the twilight, Zhou Yu's grasp tells her more than his face, the hitch in his breath speaks louder than whatever words he could utter.

The screen clatters as she nudges it open, only enough that she can slip inside, her feet sure of their path. No lanterns burn in the room, but perhaps the darkness will be kinder right now, take the weight of the unspoken and hold it as he would, it seems, hold her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The verses are from the _Shi Jing_ (The Book of Odes, or The Classic of Poetry), from the 1891 translation by William Jennings.
> 
> I've written a ficlet that's set in this same continuity and works as a missing scene for this chapter: [deserted terrace of cloud and rain](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1561124)
> 
> Any feedback is adored. :)


	3. Chapter 3

A bead of blood wells from her fingertip. Xiao Qiao pinches her mouth into a line and wraps a clean rag around her finger. The culprit, the splintered roll of bamboo slats, is spread over her lap. She peels the jutting barb of wood away.

Across the table, Zhuge Liang raises his eyes from a manuscript. "You have a remarkable copy of the Spring and Autumn Annals. I may have to come back and take notes."

"Or my husband does," she says. Thick golden sunlight reveals the swirling dust in the air, spurred by her sifting through the library of manuscripts, both paper and bamboo, on the upper floor. She did not precisely invite Zhuge Liang along, but his company seems a familiar thing by now, and she settled into it without much thought.

"Given how often you come up here, esteemed lady, I might guess differently as to whom these books truly belong."

"Let's say that we are happy to share." Perhaps a bold statement--as closed-off as he can be, Zhuge Liang invites such incursions. She folds away the cloth she used to stop the bleeding.

"Then yours is a content marriage," he says, before straying into some fascinating scribal note in the Annals.

"My husband is more artist than scholar. The _qin_ , the brush, the dancing sword, these are his purview."

Xiao Qiao counts herself only a student, shining her lantern through a crack in the great doors of the house of learning. An unspoken need pushed her to take up the books, one by one. The ancient phrases limbered her mind until it was pliant and eager, embracing each new lesson like a lover.

A content marriage, Zhuge Liang said.

Yes, it is. Her duty has become enmeshed with love, and she values Zhou Yu more for his laughter and kindness than for his title and the security of her own existence. Some shadow has darkened her husband's brow in these last days. It drapes about him in his work and at his leisure, and rasps in his voice when his focus slips and he forgets to bear up under its insubstantial weight.

It began when he rode out with Zhuge Liang on that first clear day after the storm.

She looks up at her guest's pensive silhouette against the window and is struck anew, as if by an autumn leaf sweeping her cheek, by the mystery of his coming.

"Kongming," she says. "Why are you here?"

No hedges, no courtesies, no assurances that he may linger in the guesthouse for as long as he pleases. The moment unfurls like a flower, like a hand.

The volume of the Annals drops on the table. "This is the land of my childhood, though my family lived well to the east of here."

"Ah." That is a palatable reason and a filial one. "I'm not surprised. Sometimes when you speak more freely, there's a Southland note to your voice."

"You have sharp ears, as well," he says, as if there's some hidden meaning there. "I had meant to ride out, see if the village was still standing."

"You must tell me if I can help." She nods briskly. It seems she misgauged the boundaries of their conversation.

"That does seem too brief an answer, no?" Zhuge Liang sets his hand on the table, his fingers curling and then slackening. "I never forgot the first time I came to this place. As I told you I wouldn't."

She lets her countenance soften.

"I wished to see what it would look like in peace," he continues. She turns to wipe the dust from another roll of bamboo. "I know enough of the world to know that friendship doesn't meet you at every bend in the road."

In that moment they understand each other. It was no idle pastime for her to keep writing to him in spite of the distance and the travails of the messengers. Even if she thought more of Zhou Yu than herself at first, the answering letters became their own reward, a connection spun out in ink and poetry and small shared insights across the long journey.

She smiles to herself and puts her box of writing implements and a stack of papers on the table. "For your notes."

Zhuge Liang nods, a pondering gesture, and turns so that the light from the window pours onto the blank sheet.

* * *

For some days Xiao Qiao watches Zhou Yu, as is her wont when he is unsettled. He had his reservations about Zhuge Liang's arrival, but the lengthening visit seems to have tangled rather than unravelled them. Always early to rise, her husband now leaves the bed before dawn, strokes her mussed hair and tells her to go back to sleep. The soldiers stationed at Red Cliff find themselves running extra drills, mending patrol boats and double-checking stores and equipment. Zhou Yu appears at meals and divulges the events of his day according to the bare bones of courtesy.

At first she makes no comment. The chores of the household and the care of her daughter easily swallow up her day. As a soldier's wife, she's accustomed to the physical absences of her husband. To have him at home and yet so distant begins to chafe on her mind.

Then one afternoon she comes downstairs with her bucket and soap and washing rags. The southern sitting room is Zhou Yu's domain, a place for his music and his thoughts, unless guests need to be entertained. It has sat unheeded and untended for a while.

Zhou Yu is kneeling on the floor by one wall. He settles his _guqin_ into its case and shuts the lid, his palms lingering flat on the carved wood.

Unseen, Xiao Qiao stops on the stairs. Zhou Yu covers the instrument case with a cloth, then pauses again. He has not played often lately, but the _qin_ has always been in this room. Always within reach, within sight.

"Are you leaving, and I haven't heard?" She makes her voice gentle, as gentle as she can.

And Zhou Yu, who can catch the flurry of an owl's wings in the night, glances up at her sharp and startled.

"No." The word is bracketed by silence.

"Then you mean not to play anymore?" She crouches down to dip a rag and wring it. Listening to his music is one of her most clement pleasures, but the _qin_ means many other things to him, some of them private, not shared even with her.

"I... For a time."

It is not in her nature to press. Her concern rises another notch. "I see. Shall I offer another theory? You plan to ponder some hidden threat in silence. That would explain your men running themselves ragged in the high summer heat." She lightens her tone, inviting him to continue the jest.

"I've had some reports. Trouble with robbers," he says. "Nothing alarming. I sent a patrol to investigate."

She almost forges on with, _And the highwaymen occupy you so that you must forsake your music?_ The gibe is deadened only by the knowledge that he is deliberately taking her literally.

What, what is it? She begins scrubbing a windowsill so as not to stand there frowning at her husband. "Of course. Have you heard from Shangxiang?" The princess rode off for a hunt in the woods as soon as the rain ceased.

Zhou Yu gives a distracted hum. "She'll be fine. Rue the bandits that would go up against a score of her maids. Let her wander the hills. We're at peace."

As he goes up the stairs with the wrapped _qin_ under his arm, he repeats that last word, _peace_ , under his breath, as if tasted strange in his mouth.

Xiao Qiao thinks of him sitting at the _qin_ in this room: In winter, under omens of war. In spring, his notes tender with longing. In summer, only a little while ago, playing to both indulge and counter the whim of a guest.

 _His answer is in his music_ , she remembers Zhou Yu saying. There is another answer in his actions now. He is hiding away the means that first let him come to an understanding with--or, in some measure, _of_ \--Zhuge Liang. He speaks to her, too, in stiff, scattered dregs of conversation.

If she were to name the emotion that hangs about her husband, it would be troublingly close to guilt.

* * *

Coming down to the training yard, Zhuge Liang briefly debates the choice of titles. The sandy span of ground is empty of men save for one, but this one is at the crux of his present conundrum.

With a smoothly executed turn, Zhou Yu finishes his sword form. Zhuge Liang has an implicit grasp of the movements of armies, vanguards of cavalry and masses of foot soldiers, of the complex interplays of terrain and formation, of boldness and caution, feint and advance. His appreciation of single combat is mostly aesthetic. Even so, to his eye, Zhou Yu moves with clean strength and consummate grace. The blade in his hand sweeps the air and then comes to rest, loosely, with its point tipped towards the ground.

Zhuge Liang knows he risks breaking a moment of calm. His own equilibrium, however, demands the disturbance.

"Gongjin." He bows his head in greeting. "May we speak?"

Frankness then, he decides. Roundabout ventures have already failed him.

"I have a moment." Zhou Yu sheaths his sword. "Here?"

"It will serve." Zhuge Liang makes his hands fall at his sides. He wishes he were holding something. A fan, a brush, something that would still his flickering fingers and ground his thoughts. "I do beg your pardon for the interruption, but I find myself... bemused."

Something like a chuckle rasps from Zhou Yu. "Then ask. That sounds like a rare circumstance."

There must be more than one courtier at the palace of Wu that would take mortal insult at that low laugh. Zhuge Liang accepts its fleeting sting, at least until he can divine its actual meaning. Zhou Yu is inclined to both curtness and honesty, a general's incisive manner. Zhuge Liang, in truth, rather enjoys the thought that he may play many roles: farmer, scholar, strategist. None of those have helped him solve the question that he puts into careful words.

"You must understand. If the matter is as I fear, I would know." He glances at Zhou Yu. "Have I offended somehow? You, or your lady wife?"

"Offended?" Zhou Yu says. "No."

The denial is short and simple. Almost an unfitting answer to his dilemma. Conceding to his unease, Zhuge Liang folds his hands together, his sleeves over his hands.

"Why would you think that?" Zhou Yu's countenance is utterly still. "Has our hospitality been lacking?"

Now his plain question is spinning off to _become_ the offence. To disrespect his host while under his roof is a breach of near-sacred custom. Zhuge Liang has danced this line once or twice, when enough has hung in the balance, but those have been knowing infractions.

"No," he says. "I would not dare suggest... no." He has let himself dwell too long. For all its beauty and tranquillity, Red Cliff is not his home. Something has cloven a rift between him and Zhou Yu--this man who could read him so that he had to remind himself they were allies of a few days, not friends of many decades.

_Friendship doesn't meet you at every bend in the road._

"But," Zhuge Liang continues, "it seems to me I've brought strife to your home."

Zhou Yu looks away, and Zhuge Liang understands that he has both struck the truth and missed it, whatever the precise nature of that truth is.

"You've brought many things, Kongming. That seems to be in your nature."

If Zhou Yu places his words as a poet, must Zhuge Liang now step into the general's boots?

"That may be so," he allows. "Shall I..." _Offer apologies? Take my leave?_

Before he can finish, Zhou Yu faces him fully for the first time in this conversation. Perhaps the first time in days. "You've brought questions. Questions, and a reminder of... something I had tried to set aside."

His face, so easily moved to half-smiles and cants of the brow, is unreadable in that moment.

Zhuge Liang's jaw tightens. "Questions. I'll be glad to answer, if you'd ask them."

Zhou Yu's hand snaps closed in the space between them. His eyes are narrowed and dark as the river in the night: a restless, shifting darkness through which flow the answers he will not give Zhuge Liang.

He cannot angle to seize upon them, because the sound of running feet carries to them through the screen of trees. Zhou Yu whips around, breaking the eye contact, breaking the tension just before it grows unbearable. Zhuge Liang feels it go out of his shoulders like water dashed on the ground.

A soldier, covered with sweat and dust, stumbles into a halt before Zhou Yu. His bow is rough, and he speaks before he straightens from it. "General. A village was burned, three days' ride to the southeast."

"Go ahead to the barracks. Gather my captains."

As the soldier leaves, Zhou Yu clasps his hands, palm over fist, and bows to Zhuge Liang. "I must go." Then, more softly, "I am sorry."

Zhuge Liang returns the gesture by rote; Zhou Yu vanishes down the path. There is a river frothing between them in swirls and eddies, its swift currents a riddle and a vexation.

* * *

Shangxiang rides back after nightfall with a fat catch of deer and fowl and a confirmation of the scout's report. Her hunting party had spotted the smoke billowing into the sky. As her maids pitch their tents, Zhou Yu's men prepare to depart.

This time Xiao Qiao is up with the sun and with her husband, wrapped in a cloak against the damp morning fog, her drowsy daughter on her arm. In the relative privacy of the veranda, Zhou Yu kisses Ping'an and then takes Xiao Qiao's face between his hands.

"I won't be long."

She laces her fingers through his on her cheek. "Be careful." This the last moment that she may say it. Then he will go down to lead his soldiers and restore order, and it is her strength he needs, not her worry.

"My dear," is all he says.

She closes her eyes and kisses him. It will not be a long parting. This is no enemy army, but common robbers--deserters or outlaws or desperate wanderers. Still, she holds the endearment in her mind like a light or a weight, commits its textures to memory, and makes it lend her faith.

With a caress of withdrawing fingers across her jaw and a flutter of his cloak, he strides out into the mist.


End file.
